like a man to learn phyfic, drew the women out of this crape. They had remarked, that this pretended phyfician as the only one which the women ufed. This raised fupicions. They carried her before the Areopagus to give an account of her conduct. Agnoditia (for that was the name of our young Athenian) had no trouble to draw the judges from their error. She explained the motive of her difguife. This adventure was the cause of the abrogation of the ancient law. Since that time, the women have had permiffion to prefide at labours . The princes and kings at this time did not defpife the practice of phyfic. Almost all the famous perfonages of the heroic ages, were diftinguished for their knowledge in that art. They reckon in this number Ariftæus, Jafon, Telamon, Teucer, Peleus, Achilles, Patroclus, &c. They had been inftructed by the Centaur Chiron, whose skill and knowledge at that time had rendered him the oracle of Greece. They were particularly attached to the knowledge of fimples. They defign even now many plants by the name of fome one of these heroes; a proof, that in antiquity they paffed for the firft who difcovered the virtues of them h. We could join to these illuftrious perfonages Palamedes. It is not that he had applied to know the secrets of medicine. He had refused to be inftructed in that science by Chiron. Palamedes was a fatalift, and confequently looked upon medicine as a knowledge odious to Jupiter and the fates. The example of Efculapius being thunderftruck, frightened him . But as the penetration of his mind was equal to every thing, they fay, he hindered, by his advice, the plague which ravaged all the cities of the Hellefpont, and even Troy, from attacking any person in the Grecian camp, although the place where the camp was fituated was very unwholefome. Palamedes, they add, had foreseen this plague, becaufe the wolves defcending from Mount Ida rushed upon the beafts, and even upon the Hygin. fab. 274. p. 328. b See Le Clerc. bift. de la med. 1. 1. p. 30. men. men. The means which he used for hindering the army of the Greeks from being attacked with the plague, was to order them to eat little, and particularly that they should abstain from flesh. He injoined them alfo to use much exercise. They fay, this advice had all the fuccefs poffi ble *. If this fact had been well proved, we might fay, that, on the fubject of medicine, Palamedes knew more than all the Greeks, without excepting Podalirius and Machaon. But all this fine ftory does not deferve the leaft credit. I fhould not have had occafion to have spoke of it, if, falfe as it is, it had not ferved to confirm what I have faid precedently about the difcoveries which fome Greek writers would give the honour of to their heroes. To destroy all these traditions, it fuffices to open Homer, whofe teftimony ought to have so great a weight in every thing which concerns the heroic times. This poet fays exprefsly, that the Greeks were a prey to the deadly arrows of Apollo. We fee nothing every where, but heaps of dead upon the piles which burn without ceafing 1. I fhall only speak one word of Medea. That princess paffed in antiquity for a very famous magician. She would not probably have had this bad reputation but for the knowledge fhe had acquired in botany, and the criminal use she too often made of it. They have feen her do furprifing cures. They knew alfo, that by her fecrets the often got rid of those who had drawn upon them her enmity; they needed no more to make her to be looked upon, in these times of ignorance, as a magician of the first order. Among all the furprifing things fhe had done, there was none more celebrated than the making old Æfon young, the father of Jafon her lover. Ovid has defcribed this fable in a very elegant and pathetic manner. Many mythologists have endeavoured to give a reasonable meaning * Philoftrat. heroic. c. 10. p. 710, & 711. Iliad. 1. I. v. 51. & feq. Metam. 1. 7. v. 162. & feq. to to this abfurd tale. There are fome who have thought that they had got a glimpse of it from an experiment which they took a great deal of pains about at the end of the last age. I mean the transfufion of blood, a remedy which they tried many times with ill fuccefs. Others fearch for the origin of that fable in a tradition which imports, that Medea knew herbs, whofe virtue was to make white hairs black. But all thefe explications are not fupported on any historical foundations P. ARTICLE II. Of Mathematics. THE Greeks, in the ages of which we at present speak, had only very contracted notions of mathematics. What they knew in it does not merit the name of fcience. We are always aftoniffed, when we compare the brilliant ages of that nation with its beginnings. Their genius has been far from being unfolded as readily as that of the people of the east. Compare the Greeks of the heroic ages to the Phoenicians of the fame ages, and we shall find almost as much difference between them as between the most policed people of Europe, and the nations of America the moment they were difcovered. The Greeks even did not know to put in practice, till very lately, the knowledge which the Asian and Egyptian colonies had imparted to them. However imperfect we suppose these first tinctures, the little ufe which the Greeks made of them for almost 1000 years will always be a great fubject of aftonishment. Bannier explic. des fables, t. 6. p. 459. & 460. • Clem. Alex. ftrom. 1. 1. p. 363. Ste le Clerc hift, de la medecine, 1. 1. P. 65. P Bannier, loco cit. p. 460. I. Of Arithmetic. IT is impoffible to give even imperfect and vague notions of the state and progrefs of arithmetic in Greece for the heroic ages. Antiquity does not furnish us with any lights about the firft methods that the Greeks had made use of to make their calculations. I fhall content myself with propofing fome conjectures about the arithmetical fymbols ufed anciently among these people. The Greeks, like all the nations of antiquity, had no knowledge of figures properly fo called, that is to fay, characters folely destined to exprefs numbers. They made ferve for this purpose the letters of their alphabet, divided and ranged in different manners. It appears, that at first they defigned numbers by the initial letters *, to which they afterwards added the numeral letters. The first being, if one may fay fo, only the abridgment of the names of number, they ought to have made ufe of them before they gave to the letters of the alphabet a value dependent, not only of the rank which they held, but even an arbitrary agreement, which is plain from the manner of expreffing units, tens, hundreds, &c. This fecond operation is much more complicated than the firft. It could not be introduced, till they had received from the Phoenicians This method could not have had place in the cafe where the fame initial letter agreed to many names of different numbers. It would be difficult, for example, to make use of Epfilon, for the numbers fix, seven, nine, “1⁄2, EπTÚ, Evv, when it was neceffary to exprefs them in one and the fame calculation. They must neceffarily, in that cafe, have had error and confusion, to defign thofe numbers by the initial letter of their name. We are ignorant in what manner the Greeks in the first ages remedied this inconveniency. But the Monuments which ftill fubfift, do not permit us to doubt of the great use they made, generally speaking, of initial letters, of the names of numbers to express their value in an abridged way. • See les mem, de Pacad. des infcript. t. 23. mem. p. 416. &c. the the Epifemons, Bau, Koppa, and Sampi*, which appear to have come later into Greece than the greatest part of the other characters. In the times of Herodian, the first manner of reckoning ftill existed in the laws of Solon, and on ancient columns". It was perpetuated among the Athenians; but, as it had been infenfibly abandoned by the other cities of Greece, from thence it comes, that the grammarians, fuch as Terentius Scaurus, and Prifcian, never speak of it but as a custom particular to the Athenians . It is clear, notwithstanding, that, at the beginning, this custom must have been common to all the people of Greece. We find proofs of it in fome fragments of very ancient infcriptions. But we must agree at the fame time, that the other method of reckoning, that is to say, by numeral letters, was introduced very early into many. diftricts of Greece ". I fhould like to have been able to have spoken more ex * It is the name which the Greeks gave to three characters, which they added to the 24 letters of their alphabet, to extend and facilitate the practice of calculations. These characters were formed thus 5, 7, ✯, and reprefented the numbers 6, 90, & 900. The 24 letters of the alphabet, taken according to the order that they had given to them originally, marked the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, & 800. The combination of the eight letters i, x', λ', pé', v', E', 6, π' ́‚ and of Koppa, with the firft eight á, B',',d', é, C',, ', and with the epifemon Bau, 5, ferved to exprefs all the intermediate numbers between 10 & 20, between 20 & 30, and thus following to an hundred. Lastly, the eight letters ',,,, ', x', ', à, and the Sampi, combined together as well with the fix preceding and the two firft épi femons, as with the combinations of the first eight augmented with Bau, and with the eight intermediate ones, "augmented with Koppa, exprefs all the numbers which are between 100 & 200, between 200 & 300, &c, to 1000. All these characters, as well fimple as compound, were accented at the top. To express all the numbers which are between 1000 & 1000000, they did not use new numerical fymbols, they contented themselves with only remo. ving the accent to the inferior part of the character, which without that only meant units, tens, hundreds; this new position of the accent determined the character to represent units, tens, and hundreds of thousands. r See his treatile περὶ τῶν ἀριθμῶν. Terent. Scaurus de orth. p. 2258. edit. de Putf.; Prifcus, de fig. num. p. 1345.; Acad. des infcript. t. 23. mem. p. 417. M m Ibid. loco cit.. tenfively |